What draws non-nurses to AN.com?

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Just saw a thread from a fairly distressed RN who fears losing her first nursing job. The very first response was from someone who stated "while I am not a nurse, I think ...."

It made me stop and think - I wonder what draws non-nurse, non-medical people here? And to give advice? I can't imagine being interested enough in an engineering forum, for example, to hang out on it, let alone offer advice in an area in which I have no experience or training.

Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with anyone posting on any forum. I just find it curious. Perhaps my worldview is too limited and I need to expand my Internet browsing beyond AN.com?

Nursing is a profession that reflects all sorts of human conditions. Sometimes it is a "I am not a nurse but I play one on TV" mindset, sometimes it is a "I have been treated not so great by nurses, so I want to understand how they tick" or sometimes it is "nurses are compassionate, I think I need to discuss this with professionals". Even though TOS prevent medical advice giving, it can be emotional support someone is seeking.

Then there are the "watchdogs" who want to assure themselves that there are nurses in the world who are up on professionalism, improvement, that when one brings little Joey in for an earache they can "speak the language".

Then there are the "I think I want to be a nurse so I am gonna hang for awhile and see..." or "I always wanted to be a nurse"

Multitude of reasons, sometimes I think that it is interesting how others see nurses and a nursing profession. Sometimes it is annoying. But the magic of threads is the ability to answer to and hopefully set straight some misconceptions, celebrate in the successes.

And engineering is A+B=C most of the time. In nursing, A+B can equal 972,456 except when the lab values are off......

I think a lot of the non-nurse members come here just to seek medical advice. They think we're the cheaper/faster/convenient/more private alternative than going to their own healthcare provider.

As far as non-nurses who come here and give advice...the fact that they are not a nurse doesn't mean their advice should automatically be discounted. Sometimes it's the perspective of someone not directly involved in the field that is the one we need to hear.

I think a lot of the non-nurse members come here just to seek medical advice. They think we're the cheaper/faster/convenient/more private alternative than going to their own healthcare provider.

As far as non-nurses who come here and give advice...the fact that they are not a nurse doesn't mean their advice should automatically be discounted. Sometimes it's the perspective of someone not directly involved in the field that is the one we need to hear.

​If I'm asking for advice from a nursing peer, then that's who I want to hear from.

I was a chat and forum host on the late, great AOL nursing and nursing student communities. We got a fair number of guys (they were pretty much always guys) who asked us leading questions because they wanted us to talk dirty to them, you know, exciting stuff like Foleys and enemas and peri care. "When my nurse gave me an enema I got a huge boner, is that normal?" Yeah, yeah, yeah.

God, I loved having the power of that "mute" command when one of these guys dropped into my twice-weekly Student Homework Helper chat.